Even Smart Girls Are Dumb When It Comes To Love

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I’m pretty damn smart, but you wouldn’t know that. Primarily because you never asked, and secondarily because you hardly let me open my mouth long enough to get a sentence out before trying to shove your tongue in it — or something else.

I’m pretty damn smart, and by that I mean I’m smart enough to know not to let a little charm throw me for a loop, and not to get wound up over a “thanks for an awesome night” text, because I’m smart enough to know that you throw those around as carelessly as you throw around the money you gave me to pay for my cab home (so you could go back to sleep instead of drive me there, naturally).

I’m pretty damn smart and by that I mean I had to consciously switch my overactive brain off to let myself fall for you because I’m smart enough to know that love is not quantifiable and the fact that I could not list one impressive fact about you shouldn’t compare to the way you made me smile — like there was nothing more in the world I would have rather been doing than feel your scruff brush against my cheek. I thought I was smart enough to know that that meant something…that a feeling so real could not be evoked by false intentions but only by genuine chemistry.

That’s where I went wrong.

I’m a smart girl who can smell a lie from a mile away, but when I let my heart take over and you looked me in the eye and told me that you looked forward to seeing me all week, the veracity of that truth for me emanated so strongly that it overpowered the noxious bullshit you were spitting through your teeth.

Of course my brain knew that 3:30 AM on a Saturday is not a time set aside for priorities, but my deliberate choice to “let love in” quieted my roaring doubts and I dozed off with my head on your well-rounded shoulder and my fingers running through your thick hair as I let myself enjoy the ephemeral bliss that was sleeping with you.

I’m smart enough to know that when I fall, I fall hard because I give everything 100%, including love. Which is why I never told you no, never gave up when you disappeared for weeks at a time, and never deleted your number even though I probably should have after you rejected every attempt I made to see you before midnight. But I’m also strong, and a strong, smart girl is a lethal combination. I convinced myself I was strong enough not to need your constant presence, and somewhere in the process of talking myself into letting myself love you, this combination of strong and smart that you were supposed to respect and admire backfired and took me down.

I’ve got myself pretty figured out and I’m smart enough to know I loved you after the 2nd night we spent together. When you told me you loved me three months later I inwardly grinned and thought to my smart-ass self, “what took him so long?” as I outwardly grimaced back at you and said, “no, you don’t” — a last dash attempt to save myself.

And you just laughed and kissed me through a smile and at the time I thought I could feel your happiness pouring into me but now that I’m 8,000 miles away where your hazel eyes can’t stop me in my tracks and I haven’t heard your alluring voice in weeks, I’m smart enough to realize that you must have laughed when you kissed me because this was all a joke to you.

featured image – Pliketi Plok